It has now been two days with no morning workout thanks to this ongoing audit and my inability to get my shit done in a timely fashion, so I go to bed late and wake up late and so.
I wrote a grovely note to the head of the department who already tried to fire me once, asking for another, please sir. And was told there is no class. I’m on the list though, in case one opens up. I’m of course angry for being in the kind of bind where I have to ask so sweetly. Serfdom is never delightful. And then, after working up the (lack of dignity) to ask, to be shot down. AND TO HAVE TO SAY THANK YOU. I’m not sure what I will do without either of my summer gigs. I don’t make enough to fix the house. I don’t know how else to make extra money at the rate I was making it. I mean, I’m down five grand for the year. It’s a blow. Any my day job… well, I’m not very good at being grateful for it, but I need to be because it’s all I got, and it ain’t making me anymore any time soon. But even still, that’s only a third of what I need this year to do the three things I consider most important: insulate the crawlspace, dig out the patio and my shed pad, and build the shed shell. That doesn’t even include finishing the room that M is using as an office. It still needs carpet, which is hundreds of dollars. And then he’ll need a shed–larger and tougher to wire. At times like these, the distance between where I am and where I want to be feels so big and too far for me to make. It will take years, at this rate, just to finish “stage one” of this house. I cannot right now even imagine a day when I look out the windows and feel something other than discouraged.
It’s so discouraging, goddamn it. It isn’t traumatizing or terrible. I still have a roof, and even if I am freezing my fucking balls off right now because I can’t afford to insulate the fucking floor, I have sweaters. But it’s discouraging. I am without encouragement to try or care.
Anyway. This may be my last teaching year. I need to accept that. But so, I mean, how do I give a shit about grading these papers right now? And of course, it is not lost on me that I feel this awful after two days of being most stuck in a chair, inside, with only 30 minutes of fresh air a day. That is the worst part of despair, to know that no matter how “real” it feels, it’s just dumb chemicals bouncing around in a sub-optimal pattern.
I went on my walk, though. I saw mergansers and a pied-billed grebe and mallards, buffleheads, Canada geese, and a couple of shady looking grey geese–all at the library pond. I saw a dead dove on the sidewalk and tried to stand her up, to face the wind for just a moment more, but also to create a bit of nonsense on a weird and floating half block of sidewalk that connects to nothing. Or maybe just to feel that limp softness, and think back on bird prepping at school. I miss school. I miss wanting things in reach.